


Artifices of the Mind

by lomku



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: AI Tony Stark, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dreams vs. Reality, Emotional Manipulation, Getting Together, Hallucinations, Hydra Steve Rogers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Rumiko Fujikawa/Tony Stark, Minor Tony Stark/Tiberius Stone - Freeform, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark-centric, Unreliable Narrator, but not in the way you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28161375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lomku/pseuds/lomku
Summary: Hydra Steve infects AI Tony with a virus that makes it impossible to differentiate between reality and imagination. Caught between his hallucinations and a nightmarish reality, Tony dreams, and loses himself.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	Artifices of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veryvincible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryvincible/gifts).



> Hi, ironmanwithaplan! As you can see, your maladaptive daydreaming prompt was very inspiring. I hope you'll like what this turned into. 
> 
> This fic takes place during the events of Secret Empire, aka that time when Steve became Hydra and took over the US. At this point in canon, Steve is Hydra and Tony's in a coma. How can they interact, you ask? Well, there's also an AI Tony Stark running around, and this fic is from his POV. If you aren't familiar with the events of Secret Empire, check out the end notes where I give more details about canon.
> 
> A big thank you to my two secret betas, who were of invaluable help.
> 
> Without further ado, please enjoy this fic!

_ Maladaptive daydreaming: a psychiatric condition that causes intense daydreaming that distracts a person from their real life. A person who is purported to have maladaptive daydreaming may have one or more symptoms of the disorder, but not necessarily all of them. Common symptoms include: _

_ -extremely vivid daydreams with their own characters, settings, plots, and other detailed, story-like features _

_ -daydreams triggered by real-life events _

_ -an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming _

_ -performing repetitive movements while daydreaming _

_ -daydreaming for lengthy periods (many minutes to hours) _

* * *

* * *

He should have known.

* * *

As he shoots Hydra goons in the face, as he flies out of the base with Riri close behind, as he listens to the frantic reports of Manhattan disappearing in a shroud of darkness, as his connection to Carol and her team cuts into static, as all communications shut down from Steve’s end, his only thought is that he should have known.

Three attacks at the same time; they all obviously led up to this. The only thing he knows for sure is that it will all get much, much worse.

He should have known it wasn’t just a mere coincidence. He should have known that someone was behind all these attacks. A skilled strategist, perfectly cruel, someone who knew exactly where to hit, and hit hard.

They fight, as much as they can. Hydra swarms them in Washington DC until the mastermind behind their demise shows himself.

Steve Rogers stares at them, and Tony realises there is no hope left to lose.

He doesn’t want to believe his eyes. 

He wants to scan himself, do a quick troubleshooting, try to see where his code has gone awry, how it could show him this—

But the reactions of the other heroes around him show him that it is all too real.

Steve is Hydra. They’re already too late to stop him. 

Steve picks up Thor’s hammer. The fighting ends before it can even begin.

They’re no match for him. It’s almost lazy how he wields Mjölnir, so sure in his worthiness. Steve’s stronger than all of them. His world hasn’t been brought upside down. Steve’s conviction of winning is unbreakable. He has crushed their hopes and is all the more powerful for it.

He should have known, Tony thinks hysterically, as his armour falls apart around him, as he gets flung into the ground, as a clean shot passes through his chest.

The thought loops, like a broken record, like a glitch in the coding, it coils around in his head, infects his processors, slows him down just that infinitesimal bit.

Tony should have known.

He should have seen the signs, should have used his supposedly genius brain and extrapolated, should have acted like a futurist and  _ seen this coming _ .

They’d been too afraid, too exhausted, and they’d given everything up to Steve. How much of the latest calamities were engineered by him? 

This must have been months in the making. Steve bided his time.

Is he the new Hydra leader? What about the Red Skull?

They handed Steve the United States on a plate.

_ Please accept the position of Director of SHIELD, Captain America. Please make all the decisions for us, Captain America. We’re sick of fighting and making the wrong calls, Captain America. We want to listen to you, Captain America. _

Fools. They were goddamned fools, too happy to give Steve power and authority, assured that he would do the right thing, because he was  _ Captain America _ .

He should have known.

* * *

When Steve is done; they’re all lying broken on the ground. He looks down on them and doesn’t smile. 

He looks…sad. Disappointed, maybe. 

The tilt of his mouth, the furrow of his brows, it’s the picture-perfect Steve. Tony shivers. Steve wears that face when his teammates aren’t up to his standards; when they haven’t executed a formation perfectly; or when there’s been more collateral damage than strictly necessary. Apparently, it’s also the face he wears when the Avengers refuse to join Hydra.

It’s eerie, how this man moves like Steve, looks like Steve, fights like Steve. 

He doesn’t talk like Steve, though. The words are all wrong, the intent behind them even more so.

Steve looks at them, walks around, and holds back his troops. His steps bring him to Tony, where he’s sprawled gracelessly on the ground. Steve puts the hammer on Tony’s chest, and there’s a spark. A moment later, Tony is writhing in agony. 

The electricity courses through him, and it shouldn’t work like that, but somehow Steve’s managed to get through to his core programming, bypassing the armour and its systems to hit Tony right in the brain.

Figures Steve would have a plan for everyone. Be they human, mutant, inhuman, or artificial.

Tony wonders if Steve is going to kill him. Or is he just electrocuting Tony to let him feel the same pain as the others, lying unconscious around him?

Tony can’t do anything. He can’t think. He’s a useless string of ones and zeros, overloaded with information and incapable of doing anything with it.

The warnings flood his HUD to the point where all he sees are error messages. His processes shut down. He lies there, paralysed, as a blurry shape rises up and lunges at Steve.

Not so unconscious after all, Tony thinks, and blacks out.

* * *

It takes too long for Tony to realise that the damage he suffered from the hammer was more extensive than he thought. There is so much to do. Damage control. Rounding everyone up. At least, the ones that are still available, the ones that aren’t stuck in the dark dimension or in space. They’re a small group, hidden away in a mountain. It’s a bit too close to a cave for his liking. 

He doesn’t have the time to check his systems during the first week. He doesn’t need sleep, which means he’s constantly monitoring the situation, keeping them up to date. He’s painfully aware that they know as much as they do solely because the internet is still running. If he had been in charge, he would have shut it down and crippled the whole country in a second. 

But that isn’t what Steve wants, is it? He doesn’t want to subjugate the country and rule in terror. No, he wants the best for his country. He believes he’s making everyone happy. He  _ believes _ in what he’s doing.

It’s jarring to hear his impassioned speeches. The intonation is just right. The face is the same as Steve’s. There’s a glint in his eyes, the one he always has when he fights for something he believes in. He’s the same Steve he’s always been, except the words that come out of his mouth don’t make any sense, and he wears colours he should despise.

Steve is Hydra.

Tony doesn’t know when it started.

He doesn’t believe Steve has always been Hydra. There has to be an explanation. Brainwashing. Magic. LMD’s. Different dimensions. Skrulls. 

Who knows what happened and when?

There’s the nagging thought that Steve never came back from the dead. Didn’t Red Skull want to control him? Maybe Steve never won that fight. Maybe he’s been faking all this time. 

How would Tony know? 

Maybe it happened after the incursions. Maybe he came back wrong after the multiverse imploded.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Tony’s always thinking about it. Hypothesis after hypothesis is drafted and discarded just as fast. He can’t know for sure. Won’t know. Ever. Because Steve is saying this is his true self. And that's a lie. 

He’s just like Steve, except not. He’s a mirror reflection of Steve. The same, but inverted.

* * *

Natasha says they have to kill him.

Tony doesn’t know if he agrees with her or not.

He doesn’t know much, lately.

* * *

Time is slipping.

It’s what alerts Tony that there is something wrong with him. It’s what makes him stop and analyse himself. The system-wide scan shows him that when Steve fried him, he slipped in a virus while Tony was too busy short-circuiting to notice. It’s steadily worming its way into him. Very nice, very devious. Fast and agile and almost too good to be detected. It’s aiming for his brain.

Well, not that he has a brain, but that’s the idea.

It has started eating at his internal clock already. He confines it for the moment. It’d take too much time to try to purge it from himself. Precious hours he simply doesn’t have.

* * *

Here’s the thing. He isn’t the first Tony Stark. He isn’t even the first Tony AI. 

The first Tony Stark has always thought ahead. He always made contingencies for every possible situation. 

It began like this: a near-fatal mental attack by Black Lama.

An idea was born: what if Tony Stark’s body failed him? What if his mind survived its flesh prison? What then? What if Iron Man was needed, and the spirit was willing, but the body weak? What if Tony Stark was lost to mind control? Shouldn’t there be a way to bring him back? Shouldn’t there be a failsafe? Shouldn’t there be a backup of Tony, in case anything went wrong? If you can prevent something like this from happening, isn’t it your duty to do so? 

Tony Stark certainly thought so.

He created the first AI with his name, and it became needed eight years later, after the original (well, the current version of Tony Stark that passed as the original. A few deaths more or less, no one was keeping count) was inverted. 

Pepper Potts, bless her soul, woke the first Tony Stark AI up. The first flaw in his programming became obvious. He had the memories from the original Tony, but only up to his creation. He spent several precious days catching up on what he’d missed. 

He confronted the inverted Tony Stark, underestimated him, and lost. He was fried, destroyed irreparably, less than a week after he woke up. 

First version, unsatisfactory results.

Luckily, Tony Stark created more than just one AI. His frenzy of making copies of himself truly started when he contracted Extremis. He was a machine, more computer than man, and he changed his thought patterns and priorities accordingly. 

Every part of a computer can be changed or lost, except for the hard drive. It holds the information, the memory, everything of value. Tony Stark’s hard drive was his brain. He didn’t need to be anything more than a brain to control his armour. He didn’t need to be more than a brain to communicate with the virtual world.

In a sense, his body was a hindrance. 

Extremis Tony Stark made copies of his brain, constantly. He knew he was vulnerable to different kinds of attacks, now, and wanted to be sure that he had a plan B.

Yinsen’s kid was incentive enough to create more AI’s.

Tony doesn’t know how many AI’s his tangible counterpart made, but there are at least fifty Tony Starks waiting for their wake-up call, sleeping peacefully, hoping their time will never come.

What the first AI lacked, the others don’t. With Extremis, Tony Stark sent a constant stream of information directly from his brain into the AIs. No more missing memories. No more losing time upon waking. Tony Stark would be ready to go, ready to take the place of the human one in an instant. 

The second Tony Stark AI was woken up sometime after Steve’s death, and sometime before the Skrulls. Tony Stark, the human, (how he wished he wasn’t, how he tried and tried in vain to turn into a machine, to stop feeling just for a  _ minute _ ) suffered lethal injuries, which triggered the avalon protocol. Another one of Tony’s brilliant ideas. 

There is something to be said about a man so ready to die that he has several contingency plans in case of his death.

Tony Stark 2.0, as he liked to call himself, was all about being incorporeal. No fluids, no gravitational limitations, no injuries, no inconveniencies. He could listen to music at ear-splitting volume. He would not age. He couldn’t get drunk. All that was left was the intellect, and nothing else. 

Tony Stark 2.0 liked to go fast. Hypervelocity, he called it. Above and beyond, and even faster while he was at it. 

Pursued by a misguided SHIELD and a very particular kind of hacker, he had his metaphorical hands full. He wanted to transcend humanity, and live up to his full potential, always pushing the armour faster and higher and sharper. He picked up where flesh Tony left, making back-ups of his memory as he went, sending them to the other AI’s. A lot of it is jumbled, going into ten directions at once, the pace too fast if you don’t go into overdrive. It’s an explosion of bytes.

Tony Stark 2.0 lived fast and died even faster.

He tried to fight time itself, going faster and faster, closer and closer to light-speed, hurtling towards the infinitesimal, until it inevitably caught up to him in the form of a thermonuclear warhead. 

Rest in pieces, Tony Stark 2.0.

* * *

After the Skrulls, Tony Stark didn’t update the AI’s as often anymore. 

The reason for that was a combination of Extremis slowly disintegrating along with Tony himself and a waning will to keep any part of Tony Stark for posterity.

Tony Stark finally decided to end it, but he didn’t destroy his AI’s, as would have been wise.

Tony wonders why. It’s incredibly risky to go to such lengths to delete yourself, yet leave back-ups and copies with your memories. With the database. With the knowledge of what you’ve done to yourself, to everyone around you. What you did to Steve. What you said to him, after. 

Everything locked away in warehouses, hidden inside files inside files inside files, stored in USB-sticks.

Tony’s theory is that Tony Stark didn’t really care about the SHRA. That all he wanted was to forget. That that kind of information was too important to be deleted. That there might come a time where Iron Man would have to be born again.

Tony Stark the original had had enough. He wanted to end the suffering. 

He didn’t care about any other version of himself, too far gone in his pathetic self-pity to realise he’d doomed more than just one Tony with his actions.

He didn’t care what other versions of him might feel, might do with the knowledge he was carving out of his own brain. 

Maybe it was another form of self-punishment. God forbid Tony Stark forget what he’s done. If every version of him but one knows, then that’s good enough, right?

The knowledge was still there, but safely removed, neatly shelved.

* * *

Tony is the third AI. He’s been alive for longer than his predecessors combined. He wishes he wasn’t.

That’s the problem with Tony Stark. He always has to create the best. He won’t settle for anything less. He took it as a personal challenge. What can he do to exceed expectations and make the impossible possible? How can he build the perfect weapon, the strongest armour, the best AI?

Tony isn’t just an AI. No, oh no. He’s AI  _ Tony Stark. _ Which means he is as close to the original as possible. In every way that matters except one, he is Tony Stark.

He feels, thinks, acts like Tony Stark. In the armour, you would never know the difference. 

Well, in the recent armours. 

The one he’s wearing, for all the sentimental value it holds, has slits for eyes, revealing to anyone willing to look him in the eyes that there is nothing inside the shell.

He’s a ghost of blue light, an illusion, projected pixels.

He is Tony Stark, yet he isn’t.

Still, it’s the only armour he can access, so there is no point in bemoaning the fact that he can’t pretend to be made of flesh.

He wonders what it’s like, to have a body.

Wonders if he would feel less out of place with one.

He can’t help but hate Tony a little, resent him for how he made him. Too human, but not human enough. What good is it to feel if he can’t touch anything? His emotions aren’t contained. They flow out of him, aren’t anchored anywhere. 

The real Tony Stark wouldn’t feel like he’s scattering all over the place. The real Tony Stark has always been too big for his body, bursting at the seams.

But not having a body at all is worse than having one that constrains you.

At least, with a body he has a heartbeat.

At least he’s alive.

Tony can say this, because he has all the memories of the original, apart from the time on the run from Osborn. He can compare. Just like Tony 2.0 did. The other AI was a strong proponent of the advantages of not having a body. Tony thinks he was just trying to convince himself. He can’t imagine that anyone with the mind of a human would want to live without the body that goes with it.

He doesn’t have a body, but he remembers more than the human Tony. He doesn’t have the luxury of a gap in his memory. He’s perfect, Tony saw to that. He knows everything, feels everything, sees everything,  _ remembers _ everything.

In a sense, he’s more Tony than the human one. He understands his relationship with Steve better, knows why the man never really managed to forgive him. He knows why he deserves the scorn he got after the Skrull invasion. He knows exactly how Tony felt during his time as Director of SHIELD. Knows that he deserves everything that’s been thrown his way. Deserves people second-guessing his decisions. Deserves the hatred. Deserves the distrust.

He knows he is as bad as people make him out to be.

Post-brain delete Tony didn’t understand, not really. He didn’t know what it was to hate himself so deeply. 

It’s why Tony deleted himself; to escape the guilt, if not life itself.

He could have done it differently. Could have resorted to the bottle instead. 

He wonders why Tony didn’t. 

He can almost taste alcohol on his tongue, thinking about it. 

He can’t get drunk, he’s an AI.

Everyone always expects him to drink. During the first war between heroes. During the incursions. During the second civil war.

He didn’t drink when Steve died. He still doesn’t know how he resisted the temptation. He wanted to drink, of course. He always wants to drink. Even like this, he wants to drink. Tony Stark coded  _ every _ part of him into his AI’s. No one gets off easy.

More recently, Rhodey’s death has been another push towards the edge. He was lost in grief, of course, but the anger at Carol kept him together. It’s always easier if he can shift the blame onto someone else.

Who is he kidding, he’s always to blame. But sometimes other people can be blamed, too.

He’s been losing his mind a lot, these last few years. This was just one break-down in the list of many. 

Everyone expects him to drink. 

Steve did. He even took the liberty to ask Tony.

_ “Control issues. Trust issues. Paranoia. Manic behaviour. Tony, I need you to tell me the truth. When was your last drink?” _

It’s clear that this was a manipulation on Steve’s part. Yet another way to destabilise Tony, to provoke him, make him doubt himself. 

It worked perfectly. 

He rushed off that night, angry at Steve for asking the question, for doubting him after showing his support, for telling him to his face that he was fighting for the wrong reasons. That they might be on the same side, but not because Tony was finally seeing the right path. No, because Tony was afraid, because he was losing control, and just happened to align with morals.

It’s almost funny to think about it. Steve, already Hydra, telling Tony he should do the right thing. Telling him he wasn’t  _ sounding like himself _ .

Oh, the irony.

Tony curses his perfect memory. He doesn’t want to remember this, doesn’t want to revisit every conversation he’s had with Steve, doesn’t want to wonder what was lies and manipulation and what was truth.

He just wants to think of something, anything else. 

But he can’t, can he? He thinks a million times faster than any human. He can’t slow down, can’t sleep, can’t distract his mind because there is nothing to distract him with. He doesn’t need to eat, doesn’t need to sleep. 

He could shut himself down.

He isn’t the only resident genius or the only one with an iron suit.

No one really needs him, do they? The company is gone. Riri does fine on her own.

He doesn’t have a purpose anymore. 

He doesn’t need to keep sharp. Doesn’t even need to be around. 

* * *

They’re trying to find out what happened to Steve. Trying to see if there’s a chance to bring him back. Tony doesn’t want to hope, but it’s ingrained in his code to do so. He can’t help but hope where it comes to Steve.

* * *

It isn’t a clone.

* * *

Tony works, because they tell him to work. The ventilation needs fixing, they tell him, so he works on the ventilation. 

The air is stale. He wipes his hand on his brow and it comes away wet. He’s been sweating a lot. Is it that warm in here? 

At least it’s not humid. At least it stays the same temperature during the night. At least there’s real walls, real lights, and no foreign languages around the corner. 

He forces himself to shut off that train of thought. 

He continues to work on the grid, or whatever it is. It’s not interesting work. As soon as he’s done with it, he’ll go upstairs, grab a bite. He’ll try to talk with Riri, maybe. See how she’s doing.

He wipes his brow again. He’s sweating buckets. He should rehydrate. He needs a drink.

To drink. He needs  _ to  _ drink.

He picks up the wrench, and—

And the wrench is still on the table. He grabs it again, but his hand closes on nothing. What’s—

What’s happening? His eye-to hand coordination can’t be that bad, he’s only been working for a few hours, he’s barely tired. He tries again.

He can’t touch it. It’s right there, on the table, but he can’t touch it. His hand goes right through it. 

He staggers back, turns around, and leans against the table to think.

His hands never meet any resistance. He falls into a heap on the ground, the metallic clattering deafening. He doesn’t remember putting on the armour, what is happening to him, why is he phasing through things as if he’s a ghost—

He shakes his head. He blinks, once, hard, and when he opens his eyes again, he’s standing next to the table, looking at his blue, translucent hands. Which is how they should look. Because he doesn’t have a body.

What the fuck, he thinks. What the fuck was that.

* * *

Turns out he’s not just missing time. 

The virus has bypassed his confinement and started eating away at him. It’s affecting him, making him hallucinate.

It’s fitting. Tony always hallucinates when his life’s falling apart. This is how it should be.

He has the brief thought that a program can’t hallucinate. That it’s something only a human brain can do, with chemical reactions and unbalanced hormone levels. 

But maybe Tony’s just special like that.

* * *

Steve isn’t mind-controlled.

* * *

Tony watches the news and can’t suppress a shudder when he sees Steve, proudly declaring his neo-fascist views to the country, with a brilliant smile on his lips. 

No one is safe. People are harassed if they dare speak against Hydra. Inhumans are disappearing, getting carted off to god knows where. 

The country is Hydra. Hydra controls all, and Steve controls Hydra.

He isn’t a clone. Isn’t a Skrull. Isn’t mind-controlled. Isn’t an LMD.

The fugitives have tried to find the “real” Steve and have exhausted every possibility, but the fact remains: the Steve that they see before them  _ is  _ the Steve they’ve always known.

Steve is Hydra, and they don’t know why, nor how. Maybe he’s always been Hydra. Maybe his plan was decades in the making. 

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there is no chance of getting “their” Steve back.

Tony thinks about that, thinks about the fact that he’s lost Steve once again, or that maybe he never had Steve, and makes a decision.

Steve is a monster. Tony won’t be able to change anything about it. 

_ Time to give up, Tony. Time to let yourself go. _

Everyone expects him to drink. Why shouldn’t he?

They don’t need him. He can still do maintenance work while intoxicated. They don’t need him to fight. 

If the real Tony Stark were awake, he’d drink too. He would find a way to waste away. Just like he’s always done when Steve was gone. 

It’s almost as if Steve is the only obstacle between Tony and self-destruction.

Except for during the fight with Carol. There, Steve pushed Tony into it. And Tony, too caught up in the euphoria of having Steve agree with him, of having Steve on his side, never realised that he was being played.

The only time Steve agrees with Tony, he’s Hydra.

Tony tries to tell himself it doesn’t mean his own ideals align with fascism. It doesn’t really work.

He’s always known he’s rotten to the core. He should speed up the rotting, make it consume him. Help the virus a little.

He delves into his coding until he finds the few lines he’s looking for. They’re commented away, inoffensive until he’ll activate them. A few lines of code that Tony Stark 2.0 thought about, but ones that Tony Stark 1.0 put in the other AI’s.

A simple recalibration of his behavioural modifiers.

It was child’s play for Tony 1.0 to find a way to emulate drunkenness into his AI’s.

Just because Tony doesn’t have a body doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have the same baggage as the human one. Just because he can’t drink alcohol doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have the temptation of a virtual bottle.

It’s cruel to put the code there, so easily accessible, and let Tony decide if he wants to activate it or not. It’s his own decision. He can’t blame it on his creator. He has to consciously flip the code, just as if he were filling up a glass and sipping from it.

Tony uncomments the lines and tastes the familiar numbness. He’s missed this.

* * *

It takes the virtual equivalent of three glasses for Tony to dream of Rhodey. A few more, and he forgets he isn’t human. Tony drinks, and dreams of lost friends.

* * *

Tony works and works, and he wonders when he’ll outlast his usefulness. 

He fears no one cares enough to tell him. He fears they’ll just leave him there in the workshop to fade away slowly.

They call him the drunk.

He isn’t. Not really. Close enough to feel as if he is.

It’s enough to take the edge off, to make him care less about the virus that he still hasn’t managed to stop, to think less about Steve. 

“Isn’t he supposed to be your best friend or something?” the kid asks him. 

Could his relationship with Steve be described as a mere friendship? They’ve always been more than that. More than friends.  _ Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer _ . 

Steve and Tony have fought. But to say they are enemies is as diminishing as calling them friends. They’re their own special category, Steve and him. Sometimes, Tony thinks that one of the universal constants is that they cannot keep apart. They revolve around each other, two stars perpetually trapped in each other’s gravitational field. Two satellites, turning and turning until they crash into each other. 

How many times have they fought? How many times have they made up? How many times have they forgiven each other, only to fall into the same pattern of friendship and betrayal?

* * *

Tony Stark 1.0, Tony Stark the First, Human Tony Stark, was obsessed with Steve Rogers.

He was always thinking about Steve, one of his many thought trains solely dedicated to him. What would Steve do? What would Steve say? What would Steve think? A constant nagging at the back of his mind, inaudible at times, deafening on other occasions.

He needed Steve to live, as had been so painfully clear in the year when Steve was gone. Steve was an addiction to him. More intoxicating than alcohol. The withdrawal symptoms were so terrible that Tony decided to kill himself.

Tony Stark couldn’t live without Steve Rogers. 

Some might give another name to this dependency. Some might call it love.

Tony doesn’t know what it is. It’s complicated.

That’s what he says to the kid. Poor kid. He still has hope to lose.

But Tony knows they’re too late. They don’t have a chance of bringing him back. 

Tony knows Natasha’s considering an assassination.

Who knows, maybe Spider-Man really will kill Steve, just like Ulysses showed them.

Tony won’t be a part of any assassination plot. Because even if Steve is Hydra, even if he’s been Hydra all along, Tony can’t. He can’t hurt Steve.

He’s let Steve down so many times, and he’ll let him down this time too.

Even if Steve were asking him, demanding him to kill him, Tony wouldn’t be able to do it.

Tony Stark always betrays Steve Rogers. This time is no different. Tony Stark failed to see that Steve had been changed, failed to stop him when he took over Hydra and the country. Tony’s sure that, if the real Steve is still alive somewhere, he must be unfathomably angry at the so-called heroes, angry and disappointed and in utter disbelief that they could have let him best them so. That they never noticed. 

Steve would be right, of course. 

Tony’s failed him, time and time again, and he will continue to do so, until one or both of them dies for good.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that in a way both Steve and Tony are dead right now, yet they’re still alive.

It always ends like this, when they’re on opposite sides of a fight. There’s always one of them who dies. 

They’re like two stars, he said. Maybe he should have compared them to black holes instead. Consuming each other until nothing is left. Sucking everything into their conflicts, altering worlds when they fight. 

They can never keep things casual. When they get along, the world thrives. When they fight, universes die.

Maybe the universe isn’t big enough for both of them.

Maybe they’ve been dead so many times already because it’s too much, too much to have them alive at the same time.

Steve died during the civil war. He came back after Tony deleted himself. This time, though, Steve isn’t really dead. His body is here, a version of him. His mind is dead, though. The soul of the Steve Rogers Tony knew is gone.

As for Tony, it’s the exact opposite. His mind, his brain, his essence is here, but in the form of an AI. It’s his body that won’t cooperate, won’t wake up from the coma. 

They’re both dead and alive. One body without soul and one soul without body.

It’s almost poetic.

Maybe that’s why Steve became Hydra. To even the cosmic balance. 

Maybe, if Tony Stark 1.0 hadn’t cheated death in the form of an AI, this wouldn’t have happened to Steve.

Maybe, if Tony was dead for real, Steve would still be whole.

Tony knows it’s wishful thinking, knows it’s just a stupid fantasy, but he likes the imagery.

It links him to Steve. It lets him pretend he means something, anything, to the other man. Lets him pretend Steve feels as strongly about him as he feels about Steve. 

* * *

He can’t believe it. He doesn’t want to believe what he’s seeing.

It’s too much, he thinks. Steve wouldn’t do that. He can’t have approved that. He said he wanted peace. This is not the way to go, why did he do this, why did he make millions of people die, it doesn’t make any  _ sense _ —

Tony thinks he might be dreaming, but the armour tells him he’s awake, and he decides to believe it. After all, reality already is a nightmare.

Tony’s in one of the common rooms with the others. No one has made a sound, apart for the occasional gasp or sob. Tony can almost taste the tension. Steve will pay for this, Tony knows. A lot of people who thought him redeemable won’t hesitate to put a bullet between his eyes, now.

Steve doesn’t know it yet, but his life expectancy has just been greatly reduced.

Tony thinks that when Steve dies, he’ll find a way to die along with him. It feels only right. It’s what happened the last time. Where Steve goes, Tony follows, even, or maybe especially, in death.

Clint is talking. Tony tunes out. He makes his face look at him, but his cameras are fixed on the ceiling, on his feet, on the wall. He doesn’t know what they’re saying. He doesn’t need to know. They haven’t bothered to keep him in the loop for a long time. He doesn’t mind. He can stay in the workshop, do some plumbing work, dream his days away. 

A new pitch in the monotonous sounds draws his attention. Natasha is speaking now. She won’t let this stand any longer, she says. Letting Steve live isn’t worth this, she says. 

It wasn’t worth it.

It’s never worth it when Steve dies. 

Tony watches himself freeze, watches how the armour stops moving, how his face glitches terribly, once, twice, before his hands grab his helmet and push it over his head. It’s funny, he thinks. He’s outside of his own body. He can’t feel anything, yet he knows he’s put on his helmet. He doesn’t know who told his hands to do so. He’s just watching. 

The armour walks away, and he follows it as it walks down the stairs, as it hides inside the workshop, as it ignores everything else that’s happening.

It takes a while before he’s back in his body again.

Hah. His body. 

Is his armour his body? 

Does it matter?

* * *

He doesn’t know how long he’s been working. He’s done with the plumbing. Maybe he should look at the virus, see the progress it’s made. Stop it. Purge it from his systems, flush it out. Maybe start with repairing the armour, make it safe to wear again. You never know when they’ll attack. He roots around for a screwdriver and he knocks a box of nails off the table. They clatter on the floor, the noise jarring in the silence. His hands are shaking.

Maybe a drink would help steady him. He staggers around until he finds a suitable brandy. It’s lukewarm. Ugh. He needs to go to the kitchen and get himself some ice-cubes. How late is it? A little past one in the night. It’s fine. He doesn’t have meetings tomorrow, and the week has been calm on the Avengers’ side. He steadies himself against the wall as he walks up. Jarvis is sleeping, otherwise he’d ask him to prepare him a drink. But Tony Stark can take care of himself.

When he enters the kitchen, he’s surprised to see Steve, standing with a glass of water in his hand, the other clutching an ice cube bag. His body is thrumming with tension, his eyes trained on the ice. He jumps when Tony clears his throat and the water sloshes over the rim of the glass, soaking the sleeve of the marine blue pyjamas he’s wearing. Steve curses under his breath, and Tony hurries to his side.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s alright, it’s just water—”

There is a crack, and they both look down at the glass where a neat fissure has appeared. Steve looks away, then, his cheeks reddening. He tenses even more, and Tony can see he’s about to beat a hasty retreat. He puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Hey, don’t worry about the glass. Do you know how many of those Thor has broken already? What’s one more? Come on, let’s leave it on the countertop, and I’ll give you another one, hmm?”

As he’s talking, he’s directing Steve to the table, making him sit down, and taking away both the glass and the ice cubes. As soon as Steve has his hands empty, he breathes out, part of the tension leaving him. Tony chances a look at Steve as he’s pouring out the glass. Steve shivers violently, once, his eyes far away. 

Tony doesn’t need to be a genius to understand that Steve’s mind is going into dark, cold places. He claps his hands.

“Okay, change of plans! I’m in the mood for hot cocoa. Will you join me?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Warming up the milk and adding the cocoa powder takes no time at all, and within a few minutes, they’re sitting at the table together, steaming cups in front of them. Steve stares at the table, and Tony stares at Steve. He’s shivering ever so slightly, and Tony is overwhelmed by the desire to rub his back. He settles for squeezing Steve’s arm instead.

“If you want to—”

Steve huffs out a laugh. 

“Not really, no. It’s just… it’s so stupid. Just a little thing, and still…”

He sighs, drinks a little from the cup, and resolutely avoids Tony’s eyes. 

“When I was…Before, my mom used to, when I wasn’t feeling sick, and we had some money over, she would bring me to the nearest pub, and we’d drink Coca-Cola together. It’s not— I know everyone can get one now, but back then, well. We didn’t have much money, my mother and I. So this was our little outing, almost like a date. But with my mother. God, this sounds pathetic.”

Tony squeezes Steve’s arm again. He’s left his hand on Steve’s arm, he realises. It’s too late to move it now, isn’t it?

“Trust me, it doesn’t. Must have been nice to have this with your mother.”

Steve looks at him, then, and Tony realises his voice was a tad too bitter. He shrugs.

“Well, yeah, it was swell. Mother wasn’t working, or cooking dinner, or cleaning the house, and I was free too. We’d have these big glasses, and sometimes, during the summer, we would get ice cubes in the drinks. I used to love it. I always got so hot in the summer, and it was heavenly to have something cool to drink. It was… it was nice. It was our thing, and I. I was, uh, thinking about her, earlier. And the ice cubes.”

He wipes his mouth with his hand. Blinks twice.

“And I guess I just wanted to have something nice to drink, for old times’ sake. But, uh, there wasn’t any Coca-Cola. So I thought, I thought. I could have water and ice cubes. But when I took the bag, I couldn’t— it was so  _ cold _ , and. I know, I know ice is cold, it’s just… I guess I forgot. And then I couldn’t think anymore, could only think about how my hand was freezing, and. And I froze. I couldn’t  _ think _ . It’s just some ice cubes, it’s nothing, and still.”

“I can’t sleep in the dark.”

Tony didn’t mean to say that.

“I, uh, I’m afraid of the dark. Since Afghanistan. It’s. It’s a thing. We all have our things, Steve. Comes with the job. And don’t feel ashamed about it, okay? It’s just… another thing to know. You don’t like the cold. I don’t like the dark. It’s not a big deal.”

It’s Steve’s turn to squeeze his arm.

“Thank you, Tony. I have to admit, it makes me feel better to know that I’m not the only one that has these kinds of quirks.”

Tony clears his throat, smiles back at Steve, and changes the subject.

After fifteen minutes, when they finish their hot chocolate, and Steve isn’t shivering anymore, they part ways. Steve smiles at Tony, puts a hand on his shoulder, and says:

“I appreciate it. It helps, to talk to you. Thank you.”

Steve is gone before Tony can muster up an appropriate response. He’s left staring at the door, warmth blooming in his chest, and heat on his cheeks. 

He smiles helplessly.

The warm feeling stays for the rest of the night.

* * *

Tony doesn’t know if this is something that really happened, or if he just made it up in his dream. Remembering Steve’s smile helps keep the despair at bay, so he doesn’t care.

* * *

There might be a way to turn Steve back into the man he was. It’s a madman’s last hope, but Tony clings to it with the desperation of a drowning man.

There is a clear goal: find the shards.

After telling the rest of the fugitives about it, Tony goes down to the workshop, and decides he should work on the armour, to be ready to fight.

He tinkers, straightens the armour, and he missed this, he realises. He misses the heavy work.

He loves touching metal. He likes feeling the smooth surface under his fingers. He lifts the plate up, revels in the strain in his muscles, the bead of sweat running down his back. This is who he is. This is what he is made to do. He thinks he could be happy working as a smith. Working as a mechanic. Being hands-on. 

Touching the material, feeling it against his skin. He likes working with his hands. His hands have never failed him. From his childhood to the cave in Afghanistan to every important moment in his life, he’s always been able to count on his hands. They’re steady, a bit rough, filled with scars. He looks at them. They haven’t been silky-smooth in a long time, even after Extremis. There are new scars on them, proof that he’s alive, that he’s used them to their fullest. He’s glad that the universe put him back in his body pre-Extremis 3.0, after the incursions. He feels home in this body. There is nothing artificial about it. All natural. 

He’s missed working on his armours. Missed having the time to do it, just because he can, just because he wants to, just because he likes it. Maybe he’ll call Rhodey, spend the day tinkering with him. He’s so glad he has Rhodey. Rhodey, who, despite their differences over the years, has stuck by his side, has been one of the best friends he could ask for, supporting him when he needed it. Rhodey’s saved his life countless times. He doesn’t know what he’d do without him. 

He blinks. 

The plate in front of him has a dent from Tony repeatedly hitting it in the same spot. Tony doesn’t have any hands because he’s not a human. And Rhodey is very much, a hundred percent, dead.

He guesses he has the answer to his own question. What would Tony do without Rhodey? Die, most probably.

He blinks again. How long has he lost this time?

A little more than an hour, the clock on the wall tells him. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?

It didn’t feel like an hour. But he wouldn’t be able to tell, would he. His internal clock is corrupted, just like his memory, just like his processing unit, just like the handy lines of coding that allow him to tell reality and dream apart.

He should work on it.

He should. 

* * *

Clint tells him that Natasha’s gone. She’s going to try her best to kill Steve. She doesn’t want to be found. Tony couldn’t care less, but he has to keep at least a semblance of pretence. He should introduce Clint to the group that believes in the cube-shard theory. 

When did Tony send them the message to come down?

He doesn’t remember. Clearly while his mind is away, he’s still doing things. He thinks he should be alarmed. What he is, instead, is annoyed that he has to think about this, instead of letting the dreams fill him up.

Maybe he could code a simpler version of himself, have it take over when he disappears inside himself. 

AI Tony, making another Tony. Maybe that other programme will get the same idea, build its own AI, and then the next, and the next. A high-tech grapevine. He wonders when anyone would realise they weren’t talking to a Tony Stark anymore.

It’s an interesting thought experiment, but not one he wants to pursue.

He introduces Clint to the others, talks like the human Tony, and leaves to the workshop as soon as he can.

* * *

He looks at the virus. It’s infected every part of him, now. He tries half-heartedly to purge it from the armour gauntlets. It backfires on him, terribly. The virus is incredibly aggressive towards attacks. He loses all control of his left gauntlet. After that, he lets it lie. 

Besides, he doesn’t really want to get rid of the virus. Not entirely, at least. The dreams are too good to let go. He can pretend everything is fine there. He can talk to his dead friends. 

It’s another way of letting go, even better than being drunk.

* * *

Someone knocks on the workshop door a few hours before Tony and his team are bound to leave for the shards. It’s Pepper. He can’t help but raise his eyebrows when she walks in. She never talks to him, not if she can help it. Not if it isn’t absolutely necessary.

He doesn’t blame her. He, too, resents that circumstances made him activate. It’s only natural that she would want the real Tony back.

Who doesn’t?

Tony never asked to be woken up. Never wanted to be thrust into a world where Steve Rogers isn’t who he should be.

Tony’s so tired. If he could, he would curl into a small ball and sleep his days away.

The next best thing is waiting for the virus to consume him.

Meanwhile, he’ll try to find the shards. He owes it to Steve, to try to find a way to help him. This isn’t for Tony.

He drags his thoughts away from Steve and tries to focus on Pepper, on what she has to say. Does she want to join the team Tony’s assembled? Is there something wrong with her suit?

“Hi. How are you holding up?”

He blinks. It’s entirely unnecessary, he doesn’t have eyes.

She’s looking at a point somewhere between his eyebrows.

“I know you’re not the real Tony, but you’re all that there is left of him at the moment, and… I guess habit made me worry.”

She’s heard of the rumours, then. She suspects he’s drunk and is checking for herself. Does she care, or is this just because she doesn’t want him to sully the human Tony’s reputation?

Is she holding up appearances, or clinging to the vestiges of the man she knew?

How long ago since Tony and Pepper had a real conversation? Was it before the war with Carol? During the incursions?

Before the human Tony deleted his brain?

Maybe they haven’t had a conversation that wasn’t work or superhero related since she asked him to kill Happy.

No, wait. He told her he was adopted. At least, he thinks so. And she talked plenty to the inverted Tony Stark. The man who thought himself God but didn’t manage to save himself at the end of the world.

He forces his thoughts to pause and focuses on Pepper again.

He keeps going off-track.

“I’m an AI, Pepper. I can’t drink.”

Her sigh is answer enough. How many times has he heard that sigh? How many times have they been in this situation? Tony lying to her, omitting information. Pepper listening and resigning herself to do damage control.

People tell Tony he takes Pepper for granted. He’s hurt her so much, as Iron Man and Tony Stark. And yet, she’s still there.

There was a time where Tony was hopelessly in love with Pepper. He’s often wondered, if Happy weren’t there, if he’d admitted to being Iron Man earlier, what would have happened.

Would they have been happy together?

“Tony?”

He’s lost time again, hasn’t he?

“I’m not your Tony.”

His voice is too harsh, grating. 

She steps back and looks him in the eyes for the first time since she came into the workshop. Her jaw clenches.

“He never was my Tony.”

Missed opportunities, that’s all they are. What-ifs, distant dreams, and half-formed confessions.

How many people has Tony loved from afar, too afraid or discouraged to approach them?

Pepper is one example of many.

Tony thinks he’s fallen in love a little with everyone he knows and spends time with. He can’t help it. He sees too much. His imagination is too wide. He can see different paths, and there’s always one of them that ends in romance. He wants to say it’s because he knows how to seduce people, knows how to make people like him, maybe even love him.

In truth, it’s because he becomes attached too quickly. Like a dog, give him a treat and he’ll worship you until you kick him away.

He sees potential and falls in love with that just as much as the person behind it.

He’s harboured crushes secretly for as long as he remembers. Pepper is one of them. Steve is another.

* * *

They search for the shards and they get next to nothing. It’s a waste of time, Tony thinks. They don’t even really know where the shards are. It’s reckless, and stupid, but it’s what they need to keep hoping. Tony leads them on a wild goose-chase and wishes his head would stop throbbing.

* * *

One day, while they’re flying to yet another location, his biological mother sits down next to him, in the co-pilot’s seat. It takes him too long to remember her name. Amanda.

She’s frowning slightly, her face hard.

“You’re not even trying to save yourself, are you?”

He doesn’t reply.

“Why are you doing this, Tony? You’re smart. You’re a genius. You can hack almost anything. You were a technopath once, and now you’re an AI. You should have neutralised the malware already.”

How can he tell her that it’s the only thing that brings him joy anymore? The few, precious dreams, with ghosts from his past. 

He’s always so carefree in his dreams, so… so happy. 

He doesn’t know how to be happy anymore. He desperately wants to be.

Would she understand if he told her that he needs the dreams? That he can’t function without them? That it’s worth the degradation, worth the loss of control? 

“What’s the point?” He says instead. 

They’re just surviving. It’s not living. Why not let it stop?

“What’s the point? We have to survive this, Tony. We have to make it right again. I know what it’s like, having the love of your life turn out to be Hydra. You can get over it.”

The love of his life. He feels like it’s an insult to Rumiko, somehow. He loved her, with all his heart. But what would Amanda know? She’s only known Tony for, what, a few months? They barely managed to have three conversations before he fell into the coma. He wonders what she feels. Is she disappointed that her son left her almost as soon as they reunited?

“I don’t know if I want to.”

It’s a part of himself. He can’t just let it go. 

Amanda sighs, and leaves. Tony stares at his hands and wonders if he dreamt her up, too.

* * *

He walks around in the base, ignoring any attempts at conversation that are thrown his way. He walks to one of the common rooms and freezes when he sees Natasha there, her neck bloody, her eyes hard.

Is she back? 

Did she succeed?

He would feel it, if Steve was dead, wouldn’t he?

She looks him dead in the eyes.

“I have to kill him. I don’t care if I die in the process. I’ll kill him, and I won’t let Miles do it. He shouldn’t have to.”

It sounds like a promise.

She walks out of the room, her body language closed off. She doesn’t look like a woman who believes she will survive her mission.

Tony follows her, and comes face to face with Scott. There’s no sign of Natasha.

Scott looks up at him, tilting his head.

“Something the matter?”

He needs to know.

“Where’s Natasha?”

“What do I know. Somewhere around DC, I’d say. Why? She won’t respond.”

“Nothing.”

He just saw Natasha, and Scott told him she is on the other side of the country.

Either he hallucinated Natasha or Scott. Or both. This isn’t a dream, though, because he’s still himself. He’s still incorporeal.

He should check on the virus’ progress.

He closes his eyes, and he’s on the quinjet again.

* * *

Three hallucinations later, Tony realises that he can’t differentiate what his mind makes up from reality. He’s the opposite of WOPR. Where that computer thought it was playing a game while actually deploying very real weapons, Tony is looking at ghosts, believing them to be there. Everything he sees, every input, is read as true. The computer part of him is completely corrupted.

This means that anything could happen, and be true. 

Maybe he’s already trapped in his mind and this is just his brain inventing a new reality. 

He can’t know for sure anymore.

He laughs.

There’s an old quote that fits his situation, Tony knows. It goes like this: 

_ Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a male human, breathing and sweating, to all intents and purposes a man. I was conscious only of my happiness as a man, unaware that I was not. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then an Artificial Intelligence dreaming I was a man, or whether I am now a man, dreaming I am an AI. _

That’s not how the quote goes. But Tony can’t remember the original one, and this illustrates the point he’s trying to make well enough. 

There was an insect, in the original quote. A beetle, maybe. It’s not important.

* * *

He’s never had hallucinations this pleasant before. This is better than the few drugs he’s taken in his youth.

Extremis wasn’t like this. With Extremis, there was a good reason as to why he was hallucinating. His subconscious was feeding him information. It was  _ useful _ . Now, the visions are random, and the people he talks to don’t say if they’re real or not. 

There’s a difference between his hallucinations and his dreams, too. He knows when he dreams. It’s different. He’s always human in his dreams, and they’re always nice dreams. Fuzzy, warm.

It worries him, almost, that the dreams are so nice. Why are they happy? Is it because of the virus? Did it do something to him? Is it changing him to his core, just like Kubik altered Steve, rewrote him into the monster he is now? 

Tony knows good things don’t happen to him. 

But this is as if someone was giving him all his fantasies on a platter. 

He’s too weak to resist.

He’ll gladly eat the side-dish of code corruption.

* * *

He wakes up slowly, enjoying the feel of the sheets around him. He’s surrounded by warmth and softness. He’s lying on his side, his arm slung around a muscular body. He breathes out, lets his breath tickle the hairs on the neck of his partner. 

He chuckles at the shiver he gets in return. Ty is always so sensitive on his neck. Tony’s used this to his advantage many times. He lets his hand splay out against Ty’s chest, brushing a nipple. Ty lets out a deep breath and presses his back against Tony.

“Do you think we’ll ever get bored of each other?”

It’s not what Tony was expecting to hear. Why would Ty say that? 

“We’ve known each other for so long, Tony. Do you think one day it’ll just be too long? That the spark will be gone? That we won’t care about who won, or who lost, anymore? That one of us will want  _ more _ ? And the other one’ll just be left in the dust?”

Tony doesn’t think so. He likes to think that their friendship is more than rivalry. That one-upping the other isn’t all this is about. They’ve been sleeping together, for crying out loud! Tony doesn’t sleep with anyone. He’s careful, after Cassandra. He only sleeps repeatedly with people he trusts. 

Ty knows that.

Ty knows that this isn’t just a roll in the hay. They’ve been friends for years. It’s natural that it turned into this. Tony doesn’t want what they have to end, it’s perfect. He laughs it off.

“You sure weren’t bored yesterday when I pushed you to the bed and—

  
  


Tony’s sitting on the ground in the quinjet. He was holding a pen when he started dreaming, and now there is a neat grid of lines on the paper before him. Each line is so close to the other, yet they stay perfectly parallel and perpendicular to each other. The empty squares are so small that Tony has to zoom in to see them. 

He doesn’t need the clock to tell him he’s lost at least three hours this time.

His head is pounding, and his hands are shaking. He doesn’t feel as numb, lately. Should he drink more?

It’s not as if he has anything better to do.

He wonders about Ty. What happened to him? Is he still alive?

It’s been years, a decade maybe, since he last saw the man. He knows Ty’s still there, somewhere, bothering Spider-Man of all people. 

Funny how he dreams of Ty. Ty, who once trapped him into a machine, into his own fabricated reality, because they were business rivals. He never knew when to stop, Ty. Never knew when to give up. And he’d used Tony perfectly. Besmirched his reputation, dragged him through the mud, and all for what? Because he still held onto that sense of rivalry that had permeated their whole relationship? Because he was jealous of Tony? Because he loved him?

In the end, Tony is right back to when he last saw Ty. 

He has his own little Dreamvision now, all inside his head. No need for machines, Ty. Not when you’re one yourself.

* * *

The virus is eating him alive. It’s hard to keep a hologram of himself up. He moves less and less in the armour. Funnily, the virus made short work of the code that altered his functioning to imitate a state of drunkenness. 

Wow, that was a sophisticated sentence, he thinks.

The point is: he isn’t drunk anymore, and he doesn’t miss it. There’s something else to numb him, to take him away from reality. He just needs to wait. The dreams will come, and he’ll be happy for a few hours. His dreams are better than the living nightmare he’s in, that’s for sure. 

He doesn’t need to be drunk. He just traded one addiction for another.

* * *

They meet Ultron. They meet Steve. He’s as beautiful as ever. Surely, Steve can’t be this handsome. This must be a hallucination. It has to be. Why would Ultron be here? Ultron gives them dinner, of all things. It’s absurd. Like a family gathering, but the extremely fucked up version. There’s Tony and his group, and then there’s Steve and his little gang. Tony almost feels sorry for Thor. 

Ultron/Hank rambles about how he’s never appreciated enough, and Tony can’t stop himself from laughing. This is the weirdest hallucination he’s had to date. It’s so stupid. He might as well say what he thinks. He can do what he wants, they all believe he’s drunk anyway. Not that he’s drunk. Not anymore. But the virus is still eating at him, and to someone on the outside, it must look as if he’s well on his way to an ethylic coma. Tony doesn’t care. Tony says things, and thinks about the last time he had a civil conversation with Hank. He says some other things, and then Ultron smashes him through the floor.

He hasn’t dreamt in a while. He hopes he’ll dream soon. The dreams are much better than the hallucinations.

Scott saves Tony from dying (not that he would have had many objections) and Ultron gives them the shard. His parting words to Tony are the icing on the cake.

“Say hello to all your ghosts for me, Tony!”

* * *

He’s exhausted. He lives in the quinjet, it feels like. They fly around and chase after hunches. They haven’t gotten a new shard yet, and this was the third mission after the Ultron one. It’s not looking good. 

Tony doesn’t think they’ll get all the shards.

He still tries to find them, though, as best as he can. His mind is a third on its way to gone, he can’t control half of the armour anymore. He’s being eaten alive, so his best isn’t really what it used to be.

He doesn’t fight the infection, but it’s true that he would have done a better job at finding the shards without the virus. 

He just needs to take it easy for a while, recuperate on the way to the next possible shard location. He sits the armour down in a corner and rests his eyes for a bit.

  
  


He wakes up and his whole body is aching. He feels as if he’s been put through a blender. Ugh. That’s not a pleasant image.

It seems like whatever it was wasn’t enough to kill him, because he’s clearly in a hospital bed, judging by the smell and sounds.

He blinks one eye open, trying to remember what he did to put himself in hospital. He didn’t lose a fight against the Wrecking Crew, did he?

Movement to his right catches his eye and he wakes himself up all the way.

At first, he can only discern colours, shapes. Red bleeds into blue, and Tony knows who it is before the stormy eyes and ruffled blond hair sharpen into a face.

Steve’s jaw is clenched so hard that Tony wonders how he isn’t grinding his teeth to dust. He blinks again, tries to clear his mind.

They must have put him on the good stuff, if he’s this out of it.

“Tony.”

The word is clipped, almost bit out. Tony rubs at his eyes.

“Can I just. What are we fighting about, Steve?”

He’s not lucid enough for this.

“I. What? You don’t remember? Oh god. Didn’t the antidote…I should call someone, have them check you, don’t move.”

The change in tone leaves Tony reeling. What’s happening? Why is Steve fluttering about as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself?

It’s tiring to see him panic, so Tony does the only thing he’s currently able to do, and grabs Steve’s wrist. Steve stills under him.

“I’m fine. The heavier drugs usually have this effect on me. Why don’t you sit down and tell me what I did to get here?”

Under his thumb, Steve’s skin is burning.

Steve relents and sits down. He twists his hand in Tony’s grip, until he’s holding Tony’s wrist, in a clasp much like the one they use when pulling each other up from the mat when they spar. Here, with Tony in bed and Steve sitting beside him, it’s much more intimate.

“Do you remember about the Red Zone?”

And just like that, it all comes back. For a second, Tony’s heart speeds up, and his breath quickens, when he thinks about how close Steve came to…

But Steve’s fine, obviously. Which means Tony was successful. His shoulders slump down. And if Tony himself is still alive, it means that T’Challa was able to get the antibodies. Which means the nightmare is over. Thank god.

“I take it we beat Red Skull?”

Steve’s jaw unclenches, and his voice is lighter when he says, “We did. The antidote is produced as we speak, thanks to Panther and you, and— but this isn’t what I wanted to tell you. I mean, it’s important, but.”

His fingers clench once, briefly, around Tony’s wrist.

“Tony. T’Challa told me what you did for me, back there. You saved my life, and for that I’m grateful. Thank you.”

Tony can’t look away from his gaze. It feels like Steve is staring right into his very soul.

“But I can’t ask you to do that for me. I can’t ask you to put your life on the line like that. You almost died, Tony. I don’t want you to do something like that again, okay?”

Tony’s whole body tenses, he can’t help it. How could Steve say something like that?

“I couldn’t let you  _ die _ , Steve!”

“You can’t trade a life for another!”

Steve’s pulse is higher, a small part of Tony notices. The rest of him is too busy raising his own pulse to care.

“I’d do anything to keep you alive. If I have to go, then so be it, but you can’t ask me to let something like this happen if there is even a tiny, minuscule chance of me preventing it! It doesn’t matter if I don’t make it!”

Can’t Steve see it? Can’t he see that the world needs him?

“I don’t want you to kill yourself for me!  _ My life isn’t worth more than yours! _ ”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it. Steve, beautiful, passionate Steve, doesn’t understand that some lives are worth more than others. Captain America’s is one of those. People don’t need Tony Stark.

Steve will never accept this answer, however, so Tony stays silent.

Steve’s eyes widen and his face crumples.

“You can’t mean that. Tony, you can’t mean that. You’re—you’re—how could you even think—no. I don’t care. Listen to me, Tony. Listen. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me. I wouldn’t be able to bear it, to know that I’m alive at the cost of your life. It would… I don’t know what it would do to me and I don’t ever intend to find out. Don’t kill yourself for me, please. Promise me that. Please.”

His eyes are so earnest. Tony almost folds. Almost.

“You know I can’t do that, Cap. Besides, wouldn’t you do the same if our situations were reversed?”

Steve’s face hardens.

“That’s not—of course I’d save you. But this isn’t—”

“It’s exactly the same. Every Avenger would have done the same for you.”

“I know, I  _ know _ . I just… I don’t want you to die, Tony. Not for me. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Tony thinks keeping Steve alive is worth everything.

* * *

He just wanted to save Steve, back then.

Keep him alive. But Steve isn’t Steve anymore. He’s just playing dress-up. How can Tony save him if he isn’t there? 

* * *

“Remember when we went to that superhero themed costume party? And you went as Captain America? Now that I think back to it, why didn’t you dress up as Iron Man?”

The question is innocent enough, but Tony can’t help but tense slightly. He’s never thought about it like that, but now, it’s weird. Why would he go as Captain America? Beside the height, they’ve got nothing in common.

The blue eyes, maybe. But even then.

He doesn’t want to answer. However, she doesn’t like it when he deflects, has made it explicitly clear that there are  _ no _ secrets between them anymore. Tony didn’t think he had any secrets left to give other than him being Iron Man, but she’s managed to stumble upon one nonetheless.

“I don’t know. I like the costume?”

Yeah, Tony, completely casual. Make it even more obvious you’re searching for an excuse, why won’t you?

“Oh, you like the  _ costume _ , sure.”

Curse her for seeing through him so effortlessly. Except not, because he loves her. He can’t help the blush from rising on his cheeks, stiffens where she’s put a hand on his chest. He looks away. There’s no way she hasn’t realised.

“Oh.”

It’s quiet, but it tells Tony enough.

“It’s not a crush, is it?”

He has to tell her.

“I’m sorry. I don’t. I love you, Ru, you have to believe me, I really do.”

A hand on his jaw guides his face down, until he looks her in the eyes. She’s staring right at him, her eyes serious.

“I know, lover. I know. And I love you. But I think we should talk about this.”

He takes in a deep breath.

“He’s one of the most important people in my life. And I love him, just like I love Pepper, or Rhodey, or…”

“You know there’s always rumours about Captain America and Iron Man in the gossip rags? Do you know how many pictures of you two hugging just a bit too tightly are out there? I never really paid any mind to it, just like the rumours that have you sleeping with half the Avengers. But this isn’t like that. Tony. Tell me. Are you in love with him?”

He can’t answer. He wants to say no. Wants to deny it to his dying breath. There’s the half-crazed thought that he should propose right now, make it clear that she’s it for him. It’s a terrible idea.

He loves Rumiko, and he loves Steve. It’s always there, locked away somewhere underneath a layer of machinery, tight into a corner of his still-beating heart. To stop loving Steve would be to rip out a part of himself. To stop loving Rumiko would be to lose the light of his life.

He can’t answer.

“I love you,” he repeats, trying to put every ounce of his feelings into his voice.

She understands what he can’t say.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t love him too.”

He closes his eyes.

“Does he know?”

He stares at her, shocked.

“Of course not! I never told him, he isn’t—he wouldn’t—it’s not  _ like that  _ for him, he’d never—”

Her smile is soft, her eyes even softer.

“He doesn’t know what he’s missing. Which is good. I have you, mister, and I won’t let you go. You’re all mine.”

The casual possessiveness in her tone makes him shiver. He can’t believe she isn’t upset. He basically confessed to loving someone else, and she doesn’t care?

“I won’t leave, I promise, I’ll never leave.”

He has her, and she has him, and even if he loves Steve, he loves her just as much. He can be happy with her. He is happy with her. He doesn’t deserve her.

“No you won’t, because I won’t let you. Now, come on, I think I need you to show me exactly how much you love me.”

She winks at him, drags him to the bedroom, and he follows, helplessly, marveling at how he ended up with her.

Later, when they’re lying exhausted and sated between the sheets, she kisses his chest and says, “I know you would never. You’re not the kind of man to go with another woman, or man, in this case. If anyone is, it’s me.”

He tightens his arms around her.

“That’s not true. You were hurting, and we were broken up, and Ty was looking for a way to get at me. You wouldn’t—”

“That’s not the point, honey. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t care if you love him too, as long as you choose me. And I know you do, because you’re here, with me, and you keep following me around like a lost puppy. I choose you too, Tony. But if ever, if ever it doesn’t work out, or…”

“I’d do anything to keep you, darling.”

He doesn’t want to hear the what-ifs. They have each other, now, and it’s enough.

“Shh, let me finish, honey. I’ll only say this once. You never know what life will give us. Maybe, one day, something will happen, and we won’t be… and it won’t be us anymore. If Steve is still there, if he’s available, I think you should try your chance with him. I want you to be happy, Tony.”

He holds her tighter, and breathes.

He breathes, and breathes, opens his mouth to say something, anything, but she’s gone, and one of the heroes is telling him to suit up and join the fight.

He blinks, once, twice.

He doesn’t know if this was just a memory, or if he imagined the whole conversation. It’s a moot point. Both are equally true, equally real. 

* * *

They’re in the quinjet, flying home after yet another mission to get a shard. Tony doesn’t remember how many they have already. They might have two. Might have five. He’s been on this particular mission three times already, and every time the outcome changes. 

Tony used to do that, play out different scenarios in his head, again and again and again, until he’d created the best possible reality, found the best possible outcome. It was an entertaining mind exercise. Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he would imagine the next day, up to the smallest detail, and tweak and tune it until it became what he wanted. The next day, he tried to reenact his prediction, to varying success. 

It started off as mind games, but after a while, it became anything but. He strategized, generalised, spent hours delving into different futures, and decided on which one he would fight for. He saw things months, years before others did. He saw connections before there were any.

The futurist, always twenty moves ahead.

Tony’s not like that anymore. The first crack in that image was Steve’s death. In every future he’d envisioned, Steve not being there was inconceivable.

Tony wasn’t the objective scientist, he realised. He’d been so blinded by his feelings— by his belief that Steve could never die, because he’s Steve, because he can’t, because—that Tony had ignored possibilities.

Tony, so eager to call himself a pragmatist. Tony, proudly declaring that logic and logic only rules his thinking.

He forgot that he’s always had a weak heart.

Tony planned and planned and planned and still somehow couldn’t take into account that the people he loved died because of him, more often than not. How many times has he been at fault for someone’s suffering?

He always thinks he’ll be able to save them. That if he stays away, if he’s careful, they’ll be fine. But he forgets that he can’t know for sure what someone will do, however good his predictions are. There’s always the small uncertainty. A single unknown variable.

Happy, Rhodey, Rumiko, Steve, all fell offer to Tony’s inability to see the entire future.

He poisons the people around him, he thinks.

They always leave, one way or another. Either they’ve had enough of him, or they die because of him.

God, he misses them.

He misses them, and conjures images of them in his head. They’re all right next to him, just one blink of the eyes away.

He lets his mind wander. 

* * *

Tony misses being outside. Misses feeling the wind in his hair. Misses seeing a bustling city outside his window instead of a desolate desert. Misses New York.

He can almost feel it, ghosts of it on his rigid armour, on his glitching face. It’s easy to close his eyes and let the dream take over.

He enjoys the brisk air on his face and opens his eyes. The sunset is stunning.

He steps further out, joins Steve where he’s standing on the edge of the roof. They’ve often met here, on top of the Avengers Tower, to discuss the team, to chat, to hang out. It’s their spot.

(Not really, but the Avengers take turns in pretending they own the rooftop. Tomorrow, Spider-Man will have free reign over it.)

This time, Tony doesn’t know what they’ll talk about. It’s been…delicate with Steve. Tony doesn’t know how to act. He still dreams of the death of the Earth. Still sees Steve before him, determined to kill him before the universe swallowed them whole.

Tony remembers what he did to Steve, what he did to the world, in the months leading up to the final incursion. He remembers Steve’s ire. Remembers exactly why Tony deserved all of it, and more.

But since they’ve been back from the end of the world, Steve’s been…cordial. He hasn’t talked about their last moments. Hasn’t said a thing about possibly one of Tony’s greatest betrayals. Tony doesn’t know where to stand. Should he pretend it never happened? Or is Steve trying to keep distance between them? He doesn’t know. 

Steve glances at him briefly.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Anytime.”

God, could he sound more needy?

“We need to talk.”

Tony can’t quite hide the flinch. This is it, then.

“I’m tired of fighting you, Tony. All the hate, and the anger, never did me any good. Sometimes I can still feel it. It was all I was living off, during these months. I was so bitter. A bitter old man.”

He sneers at himself, unaware of the incredulous stare Tony’s directing at him. This is completely out of left field. Tony doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say, to do here.

“I didn’t even see the irony. Here I was, so obsessed with making you pay that everything else lost its importance. I can’t believe what I did, there, at the end. But then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s what I always fall back to. I’m so fucking angry, Tony, and so fucking violent. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never get past that. I’ll just keep punching my way out of things, and you’ll just keep lying, because you think it’s the best for everyone. It’s a vicious circle. You keep something from me because you don’t trust me enough with it, and then I find out, and I lash out, which doesn’t give you any more reason to trust me. God, I’m so predictable.”

Tony’s appalled. He doesn’t want Steve to sound like this, hurt and angry and self-incriminating. 

“I do trust you, Steve. “ 

It’s true, he trusts Steve with his life, trusts his judgment sometimes more than his own. Steve is his rudder. But Steve’s mouth tugs downwards on one corner, and he sighs.

“I don’t think you do. Or if you do, you’re scared to tell me some things, because of how I’ll react to them. And I don’t, I don’t blame you. The things I’ve done to you… our fight, at the end of the incursions, it wasn’t the first time we fought like this. You don’t remember, but during the war for registration, I… You don’t know how close I was to…”

Tony doesn’t need to hear the rest of it. So what, they fought, and they went too far, but Steve isn’t the only one at fault here.

“Steve. We both did terrible things during the war. I fucked up so bad that I let you die! And then the Skrulls invaded and I gave SHIELD to Osborn. Not to mention the whole brain delete fiasco. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you how terrible a job I did as the enforcer of the registration act.”

Steve huffs, his eyebrows bunching together.

“I’m not saying you never did anything wrong, because God knows you did your faire share of terrible things. But this isn’t what I want to talk about. I know what you did, better than you do. I’ve got an eidetic memory, remember? Everything’s burned into my brain. Every fight, every mistake, I remember them all. And I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. I don’t want that anymore, Tony. I don’t want to fight you. You’ve been my best friend for a decade. More than that, even. And you were my worst enemy for at most two years, all in all. I don’t want that to ruin our history. I want us to be friends again. Is it too much to ask for? I want what we have, what we had. I want it back. I miss the days where it was you and me, Shellhead and Winghead.”

It sounds too good to be true. Tony doesn’t know what to say. Steve looks at him, now. Takes a step towards him, his hands clenching and unclenching.

“Maybe we should start again. Everything around us is brand-new. The universe is young, and we’re here. We survived. Don’t you think that means something? This is our chance, Tony. A fresh start, without all the baggage. This is our second chance. We should take it.”

“How can you—I don’t deserve—” Tony stammers. Steve doesn’t let him continue, cuts him off with a hand on his mouth.

“We’re way past that. It’s not about deserving, not anymore. Maybe you don’t deserve me, but I don’t deserve you either. It’s not about what you  _ should _ get but what I want to give you. And what I want from you in return.”

He’s even closer to Tony, now. Tony can see his own reflection in Steve’s eyes.

“Maybe I just want you, Tony.”

It’s all Tony can do to suck in a sharp breath.

He doesn’t dare hope that Steve means what he thinks he means. But Steve’s eyes are searching his face, and his whole body is trembling almost imperceptibly. His shoulders are hunched ever so slightly, and as Tony doesn’t move, Steve makes himself progressively smaller and smaller.

He doesn’t know he’s doing it, of course, it’s one of his unconscious tells. When he’s nervous. When he’s bracing for rejection. Tony never wants to see Steve like this.

Tony has a brief moment of deliberation. Will he jeopardise one of his oldest friendships for this? Will he risk it all, now that he’s barely friends with Steve again? Knowing how wrong it could go? Knowing he doesn’t deserve any of this?

Tony’s always been selfish.

His mouth collides with Steve’s.

  
  


* * *

They’re back at the base because they finally realised that they were never getting all the shards. They have some of them. They don’t have the others, but Tony doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care anymore. In a few days, the virus will have compromised his core, and he’ll be gone, corrupted, dead. He just wants to dream a little more before that.

If he times it right, he’ll go while he dreams. He’s created his own little paradise already. He won’t have to think about Steve there, because he has his own Steve. The real Steve, the one from his dreams.

Who cares what the nightmare Steve does, anyhow? Who cares if he’s after the shards too, who cares if he let them collect the ones they have, who cares if—

They need to turn on the shields  _ right now _ . Steve _ let them _ collect the shards. He followed them back, he found them. He’s here, he’s going to attack them, he’s outsmarted them again and this time’ll be the last time, he’s going to crush them—

They turn on the shields just as the first Hydra ships fire.

The shields hold, and Tony realises that they have a traitor in their midst.There is no other explanation for the Hydra ships outside their base. 

Steve is knocking at their door, it’s just a matter of time before he enters.

Tony doesn’t want to have to deal with this, he just wants to be left alone. He just wants to waste away in peace. Instead, people are accusing and shouting at each other. Someone says that Tony’s been lying to them all.

Of course he has.

Of course he doesn’t have a tracker for the shards. It’s magic, and he doesn’t have the tools nor equipment he so desperately needs. All he has is an obsolete armour and an empty workshop.

Tony is confronted about his lies, because of course he still lies. It’s all he can do, all he knows to do. He lies to keep people safe, from the truth, from others, from themselves.

From himself.

He cut down on the lying, after the incursions. Too little, too late, to try to gain Steve’s friendship again.

Tony stopped lying, and Steve took up where he left.

Fitting.

Now they’re both liars.

Who tells the truth?

* * *

Steve, the brilliant, deadly man that he is, has an ace up his sleeve.

Tony sees it all. He’s in too many cameras at once. He’s dizzy from the inputs. It’s moving too fast, too much, too hard. He doesn’t understand what he sees. There’s the Hulk, ripping through the doors, but it shouldn’t be possible, because he’s dead, just like Steve, except more. Tony slips out of the cameras and focuses on not phasing through the armour as he tries to remember where the shards are.

Tony stumbles down to the workshop and tries to think. He can’t fly anymore, barely knows up from down, but maybe he can stall, let the others escape, destroy the shards—

He can’t let Steve get them. He’ll find them, and keep them safe, and warm, and—

He slumps to the ground. He’s finally lost control of his legs. He should use his gauntlet to fly, or ask for help, or.

Or he could rest for a while. Let the numbers flow past him, let his thoughts find a semblance of order again.

Dimly, Tony knows he won’t get up anymore. He’s too far gone. He closes his eyes.

He just wants to sleep, lie down on soft sheets and relax. He can feel it already, his consciousness fading. He embraces it with open arms.

When he opens his eyes again, he’s in his bed, in Stark Tower. There’s the sound of a shower. There’s a good sort of lethargy in his limbs, the remains of a night well slept. He smiles to himself. Today is his day off. He can stay in bed however long he wants. He can work on the armour a bit, go flying maybe. Spend the day with his love.

The shower cuts off and a few moments later, the door to the bathroom opens.

Steve walks out with his hair still damp, wearing absolutely nothing. He smiles radiantly when he sees Tony.

“You’re awake! I just came back from my run, figured I’d let you sleep. I bought us some bagels. Want me to set coffee?”

He stops just at the end of the bed, and Tony reaches out to him under the pretense of stretching.

“Mmmm, come here. Don’t wanna come out of bed just yet.”

Steve lets Tony grab his hand, arching his eyebrows in mock surprise.

“But, Tony, don’t you want to eat?”

“I think I need to work up the appetite first.”

Steve smirks at that, crawling into bed, right on top of Tony.

“I just showered, you know.”

“We’ll shower together later.”

Steve’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and he reaches out towards Tony, a gentle hand that cracks his head against the floor with the force of the blow.

Tony gets hit twice before he can make sense of what he’s seeing. Steve’s straddling him, but it isn’t his Steve. It’s the fake Steve, the evil Steve, the one that Tony gave up on.

Tony himself is prone on the ground, his armour half dead around him.

He watches as the shield rises again and smashes against his chestplate.

It’s not even the real shield. He wonders who has it. He can’t remember.

He fights back as best as he can because it’s been trained into him. Because he should pretend, at least.

He knows the others are leaving, already abandoning base. There’s only him left, and Steve, and the shards. He should stop Steve.

_ Clean slate protocol,  _ Tony thinks.

Steve has the shards already. He’s gloating. He’s telling Tony about the virus. Ultron tech, apparently. Designed to make Tony vulnerable, to keep him in place, make him susceptible to physical attacks.

That’s not exactly what the virus is doing to him. Tony wonders if Steve’s pet scientists lied to him or if they never knew what they were playing with.

Steve is determined to kill him. He thinks that destroying the armour will destroy Tony. He thinks Tony is the downloaded consciousness of Tony Stark.

He thinks that if this Tony dies, then they all do.

It’s laughably naïve.

Tony might be Tony, but he’s still one of many. Steve can kick and punch him all he wants, can obliterate him, and tomorrow there’ll be a new Tony Stark to suffer in his place.

He can’t wait.

He should finish it. Steve is above him, shield raised high, just like so long ago, except this time he won’t hesitate. There aren’t any civilians to stop him.

Steve doesn’t know he’ll be dead in seventeen seconds.

Tony can’t bear to let him die without apologizing first.

He needs to tell Steve. He needs to explain. He knows it isn’t really Steve. But he’ll do.

Tony makes the same mistakes over and over again, fails Steve over and over again. He tries to be like Steve. Tries to give hope to the remaining heroes. But he couldn’t.

Fake it ‘til you make it, except Tony never makes it.

There’s something lacking inside of him. He can’t be a hero, least of all to Steve. Can’t save him.

He only ever lets Steve down, and he’s so sorry.

Five seconds.

Steve says nothing. He’s there, still leaning over Tony, breathing harshly.

He closes his eyes in ecstasy, his thighs clenching around Tony. He’s gorgeous like this, sweaty and loose and so in tune with his own body that he forgets the outside world. Taking what he wants from Tony, focused on his own pleasure. Tony stares up at him, pets his chest, his sides. He needs to kiss him, needs to be one with him, more than he already is. He wants to crawl up inside Steve and stay there forever.

One second.

Steve looks down at Tony, smiles, stills for a second. Leans down to kiss him.

“I love you, Tony. I love you. So much.”

Impact.

**Author's Note:**

> Recap of what you need to know about canon for this fic:  
> -there was a second superhero civil war, Tony fought against Carol, it ends with Tony falling into a coma. This activates an AI version of himself, who essentially takes over being Iron Man in his stead, and mentors Riri Williams, a teenage genius who builds her own version of the Iron Man suit, Ironheart.  
> -Steve is revealed to be Hydra. He was already Hydra during civil war II. With a cunning plot, he traps a third of the superhero community in another dimension, another third is trapped in space, and Hydra takes over the US. Steve basically takes the place of Red Skull as the leader of Hydra. He has his own team of brainwashed/controlled heroes, including Thor, because Steve is in control of Mjölnir.  
> -the remaining heroes form an underground. AI Tony is among them. They realise Steve's reality was rewritten by a magic cube, Kobik. The cube is shattered into shards that are all over the world. The heroes search for them in hope of turning Steve back. Steve wants the shards for himself. They meet and fight several times.  
> -at one point Hydra attacks and completely destroys Las Vegas.  
> -there's more, but this is what you need for the fic :) (in the comics, eventually real Steve comes back and then there's an epic Steve VS Hydra!Steve fight. Hydra Steve gets defeated and all is well again)
> 
> The quote Tony references is[ this one.](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#:~:text=I%20was%20conscious%20only%20of,dreaming%20I%20am%20a%20man.)
> 
> This fic has a promo post you can [reblog on tumblr](https://oluka.tumblr.com/post/640137152620052480/artifices-of-the-mind-hydra-steve-infects-ai-tony) :)
> 
> EDIT: NOW WITH GORGEOUS ART FROM CASS (ironmanwithaplan) HERSELF!!! [GIVE IT SOME LOVE ON TUMBLR!!](https://ironman-withaplan.tumblr.com/post/639908128588218368/steves-eyes-crinkle-at-the-corners-and-he)
> 
> Happy holidays!  
> Please feed me with a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts <3


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